Rating: 
Summary: "The Ants are back Ted..."
Review: Father Ted is perhaps the funniest thing to appear on British T.V. in the last decade. The plot revolves around the titular Ted, an Irish priest sent to a remote island parish for "financial irregularities" (he took a holiday to Las Vegas, using money from a charity appeal to send a dying child to the Lourdes shrine, that happened to be "resting in his account"). His companions are the clueless Father Dougal and the alcoholic Father Jack, neither of whom are deemed sane enough to unleash on a real parish.
The humour is sharp and surreal, derived from a mixture of Seinfeld-esque vacuity and Red Dwarf-esque situationalism. The characters are particularly well created and the incongruity of their behavior with their priestly calling adds to the fun factor.
The plots in these early episodes are perhaps not as well developed as the later series, but still very very funny, irreverent, and much more subtle than someone chasing a cow, or a vicar being overweight and female in the manner of more traditional British comedies.
Discerning viewers who care to sit through more than one episode of this Series will be themselves richly rewarded. Anyone who doesn't grasp the irony of the statement on the box that this is "possibly the best comedy about three priests on an island...ever!", should perhaps go write a 351 word letter to their conressman about the declining morals of today's society and then go for a nice lie down and then rent something a little more safe and quiet, like "Last of the Summer Wine".
Anyone who likes alternative British comedy like "The Office", "Monty Python" or "Blackadder" should snap this up right away. Go on go on go on !!!!P.S. Father Ted was actually made for the U.K's more "hip", Channel 4, but is licensed to BBC America for sale in the States.
Rating:
Summary: Funniest thing I've seen since...EVER
Review: First of all, this is NOT an "English" series or a "Brit-com." As the creators of the show commented, "it's an Irish show" that used "English resources." It demonstrates a particularly Irish sense of humor in that NOTHING is off limits. Also, the Irish make the English look as though they have no sense of irony whatsoever. Father Ted leaves no opportunity for a joke unexploited, no matter how small. Sure it's silly but so what?
Rating:
Summary: British/Irish Comedy At It's VERY Best
Review: Having already seen most of the Father Ted's recently it was a pleasant surprise to find that the first series had been released on DVD. On exploring the DVD, there are no special features, the menus are a little unusual, but the content is exceptional. One of the funniest shows to come out of Channel 4 in years, Father Ted never ceases to make me laugh. Everybody who watches this will end up with a favourite scene - mine just happens to be the scene where Father Jack rises from the dead in "Grant Unto Him Eternal Rest". But this is not an exception. Check out the Crane Of Death, the Three Ages Of Elvis, Father Jack's walk on "automatic", the amazingly laid-back protest outside the cinema in "The Passion Of St. Tibulus" - all of this combines to make Father Ted the best of British comedy. In an era when American networks talk about their "ensemble" casts, it may come as a surprise to learn that the Brits have been doing this for years (Blackadder, Fawlty Towers, Red Dwarf), and to the long list can be added Father Ted. Dermott Morgan is terrific as the long-suffering Ted, Frank Kelly, while he doesn't get too many lines, uses what he gets to perfection, Ardal O'Hanlon is the perfect dumb young priest and Pauline McLynn shines as the lads' housekeeper Mrs Doyle (remember her in Angela's Ashes - boy, is this different!!) The sadness is that Dermott Morgan passed away effectively killing off the show. But, as these shows prove, he left Father Ted at the top of its game.
Rating:
Summary: Hysterically funny series
Review: How lucky I was to come across this series on BBC America earlier this year. In my opinion, it is the sharpest and funniest British sitcom since BlackAdder. I haven't laughed this much in a long time. The cast is excellent. Father Dougal is a hilarious dim-bulb, but my favorite is definitely Mrs. Doyle. Every scene in which she appears is a comic gem. If you want to see exquisite timing, take a look at the scene in the episode "The Passion of St. Tibulus" when the actor playing Bishop Brennan first arrives. The scene is played out without dialogue, but the tension is hysterical. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Great series!
Review: I bought this DVD for my husband and it's his absolute favorite. If you're a fan of Britcoms this is a must have!
Rating:
Summary: Father Jack converts the heathens to Father Ted
Review: I first casually watched this series as an alternative to being bored with expectations set at the moderate bar. As you might have guessed I was blown out of the water and into the pews by the quick to anger Father Jack. George Whitefield may have jerked tears from his audience with his eloquence in the Great Awakening, but Father Jack captured my laughter and attention with his drunkeness and hilarious antics. Stealing most every scene from Fathers Ted and Dougal, I found myself so enthralled by him that I call the series with my friends "Father Jack" and eagerly await series two and three. Well done. Praise Jesus
Rating:
Summary: Honestly, how could you not like Father Ted?
Review: I first saw father ted on PBS, and after watching it a little while came to enjoy it. The Cast, Setting, and Everything seems perfect, and the show is FUN to watch. I highly recommend this to people who enjoy a good laugh, and some good television.
Rating:
Summary: feck feck feck feck
Review: i first watched father ted as a young boy growing up in england and i have loved it ever since. there are very few comedies that really reach the absolute absurdity and clever stupidity of this series. black books, black adder, the office, red dward and, of course, monty python are really the only shows that can compete with this for hilarity. father ted keeps you laughing right the way through each episode and every attempt at a moral fails brilliantly. also, i'd just like to mention that the constant use of "feck" and also "smeg" from red dwarf went very far in colouring the language of myself and my friends as we were growing up.
Rating:
Summary: R2 is better
Review: I have not seen the R1 version, but from other reviews, I belive that there is no commentry on this disc??? That's a shame, because the R2 version has a commentry by the writer Graham Linehan. So if your DVD player is multizone, I recommend you go and by the region 2 disc instead. The 5 stars is for the series, not the disc.
Rating: 
Summary: Wretched
Review: I must admit first off that I only watched the beginning episode on this six-episode DVD before cutting my losses and packing it in. My wife viewed perhaps the first ten minutes before deciding that washing the dishes was a better time investment. The Irish isle of Craggy Island is home to three priests in this BBC comedy mini-series. I use the term "comedy" loosely. There's Father Ted (Dermot Morgan) and his young assistant, Father Dougal Maguire (Ardal O'Hanlon), whose chief duty appears to be caring for the previous parish pastor, the aged Father Jack Hackett (Frank Kelly). In the first episode, at least, Fr. Jack's role is limited to sitting drunk, insensate, or simply in the throes of senile dementia in his favorite chair, aroused only long enough to throw empty booze bottles at the television, drool uncontrollably at the memory of young, Catholic-school girls long past, or shout incoherent deprecations at Father Dougal. Dougal, on the other hand, has the mind and mannerisms of a silly adolescent. Compared to these two, Father Ted is so normal as to be boring. The plot of this first episode also involves the host of a national television broadcast coming to the island to interview Father Ted on the topic of priests in isolated places. (In the only marginally good line whatsoever, Ted tells the visitor over the phone that he'll know he's reached the island when he sees the boats painted with radiation symbols dumping nuclear waste into the sea.) Admittedly, I probably didn't give the series a fair shake. But what I saw was so boring, so tasteless, and so stupid that it doesn't even rise to the abysmal level of current American sitcoms. There are several off-beat British telly comedies available on video to U.S. audiences that are infinitely better, including THE VICAR OF DIBLEY and THE DARLING BUDS OF MAY. The jacket containing the FATHER TED DVD claims that it's the "best comedy about three priests on an island". Good heavens, how many can there be? And imagining the plots and quality of the others simply boggles the mind.
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